1. Boo’s real name is Mary. How do we know this? In the scene where Sulley and Mike Wazowski take her back to their apartment, you can see that she signed one of her drawings in the upper corner. The part of Boo was voiced by young actress Mary Gibbs, the daughter of one of the Story Artists who worked on Monsters Inc., Rob Gibbs.
2. Just like her on screen persona, Mary Gibbs was quite a rambunctious child! So much so that getting her to stand still to perform her lines proved to be an impossible task. The solution was to follow her around with a microphone and record all of her vocalizations. The director used puppets, jokes, and other tricks to get Mary to say the proper lines or utter the right exclamations. In the end, much of Boo’s dialog was cut together from various things Mary said while she played in the studio.
3. The character of Boo went through many changes throughout the film’s development. One of the early concept sketches showed Boo with red hair and ponytails, which became red horns when she was in her monster costume. Another series of drawings showed her with Rasta hair (frizzy dreadlocks, which you can still see on her monster costume).
4. Before it was decided that Boo would be a young girl, numerous ideas were considered for her character. At one point she was going to be African-American, or perhaps even from Ireland. She was also much older, and had a backstory that had her enduring endless pranks played on her by her four older brothers.
5. At this point in the story’s development, Boo was going to be around 8 years old, and be quite fearless. However, she was made younger over time until the writers finally settled on making her two years old.
6. As the film was nearing completion, there was still some question about how to end the movie. Should the audience go into Boo’s room along with Sulley? Should the audience see her? Test audiences were shown storyboard concepts of the ending, and a large portion of them said that they thought going into the room would be a better idea. However, in the end it was decided to depict the scene from Boo’s point of view, and to have the film end with her heartwarming recognition of her new friend, “Kitty.”
7. Among the many toys in Boo’s room are the red-star Luxo Ball (a Pixar “Easter Egg” that can found in nearly every film), a Nemo squeak toy, and a Jessie doll from Toy Story 2.
8. What’s that yummy cereal that Sulley uses to lead Boo into the bedroom? Why, Kreature Krisp cereal of course! The ingredients of this yummy concoction include tentacles, seawater, mercury, sulfuric acid, lead, bile, blood, sweat, tears, anemone, deadly pufferfish, and depleted uranium (to preserve freshness). Everything a growing girls needs!
9. When Sulley is waiting for Boo in the bathroom stall, you can hear her singing to herself. While the words are typical toddler babbling, the melodies are similar to “Beauty and the Beast” (from the 1991 Disney film), and, arguably, “One Song” from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
10. Were there ever any plans to have Boo appear in another Pixar film? At one point, yes. When possible storylines for a sequel were being considered, one treatment was to take place ten years after the original. In it, Sulley and Mike return to Boo’s closet to celebrate her birthday. Unfortunately, by that time Boo’s family had moved. When they find Boo, now a teenager, she doesn’t remember them anymore. The only way that Sulley and Mike could return to the monster world was to have Boo remember what it was like to be a child, and to make her laugh again. That idea was eventually scrapped, but has Boo appeared in any other Pixar film? When Toy Story 3 came out, many thought that the character of Bonnie was actually an older Boo. There is also a girl at Sunnyside Daycare who resembles Boo. She can even be seen playing with a blue cat and saying “boo.” However, Lee Unkrich (who co-directed Monsters Inc. and directed Toy Story 3) has confirmed that they are not the same character.
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